Category Archives: history

Midnight’s Furies

Posted on July 21, 2017 by smellincoffee

Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition© 2015 Nisid Hajari352 pages Although greater India has rarely remained united in its long history, there was every reason to hope that it would emerge from the centuries of British dominion in … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

American Independence Wrapup & On the Horizon

Posted on July 15, 2017 by smellincoffee

Well, gentle readers,  July’s halfway marks the conclusion of my American Independence series, at least for another year. What ground did I cover this year? Revolutionary Summer, Joseph Ellis;  a history of the summer of 1776,  in which the States … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

A New History of India

Posted on July 13, 2017 by smellincoffee

A New History of India© 2000, sixth edition Stanley Wolpert471 pages India isn’t an easy place to keep running. Stanley Wolpert’s A New History of India gives a chiefly-political, mostly-modern history of one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, a land … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Hackers

Posted on July 1, 2017 by smellincoffee

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution© 1984 Steven Levy458 pages How did computers cease to be the playthings of secretive governments, universities, and multinational corporations and become instead fixtures in 80-90% of all American homes?   Hackers: Heroes of the … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Masters of Doom

Posted on June 18, 2017 by smellincoffee

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture © 2004 David Kushner, Audible presentation read by Wil Wheaton, runtime 12 hours & 43 minutes 334 pages I wasn’t playing PC games  in the early nineties … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments

Revolutionary Summer – Independence Kickoff

Posted on June 16, 2017 by smellincoffee

288 pages © 2014 Joseph J. Ellis Earlier in the week I read Joseph Ellis’ Revolutionary Summer to kick off my yearly tribute to American Independence.   Ellis should be familiar to readers here, as I enjoy his narrative histories … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

CYBERPUNK

Posted on June 9, 2017 by smellincoffee

CYBERPUNK: Hackers and Outlaws on the Computer Frontier© 1991 Katie Hafner400 pages Cyberpunk takes readers back to the early days of hacking, when it was so old-school that computers weren’t involved. Using three case  in the United States and western … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

The Adventure of English

Posted on May 17, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language© 2011 Melvyn Bragg336 pages In The Adventure of English, Melvin Bragg delivers a mythic history of the language that treats our lingua franca as a living personality — battered and now … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

1066: A New History

Posted on April 28, 2017 by smellincoffee

1066: A New History© 2009 Peter Rex The list of English kings begins with William the Conqueror, but such a list is really a thing of propaganda; although England’s patchwork of ancient kingdoms were slow to be united against threats … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

The Armada

Posted on April 21, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Armada© 1959 Garrett Mattingly443 pages In the late summer of 1588, all of Europe held its breath as an enormous Spanish fleet, consisting of a hundred and fifty vessels of varying sizes, set sail for the English channel. Their … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments